


Let Me Play Among the Stars

by gravityinglass



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 15:43:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1988550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravityinglass/pseuds/gravityinglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael always had a goddamn unfair advantage, Calum thought. He’d practically been raised to this, and he always rubbed it in whenever he won and the rest of them were still struggling through the course.</p><p>“Fuck you, Michael,” he yelled, as Michael sailed past the row of trees they’d chosen for their finishing line. “Fuck you too, Marziale!”</p><p>Michael just smiled and waved, he and his dragon doing loop de loops in celebration. Marziale threw her head back and roared, flapping her large blue wings.</p><p>“Bloody dragon-born,” Ashton called. He and Aria were struggling through the rock-pillar weave. Tight turns were never their strength. “I vote we disqualify him next time.”</p><p>--</p><p>Or, 5 Seconds of Summer are dragonriders on patrol.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Me Play Among the Stars

Michael always had a goddamn unfair advantage, Calum thought. He’d practically been raised to this, and he always rubbed it in whenever he won and the rest of them were still struggling through the course.

“Fuck you, Michael,” he yelled, as Michael sailed past the row of trees they’d chosen for their finishing line. “Fuck you too, Marziale!”

Michael just smiled and waved, he and his dragon doing loop de loops in celebration. Marziale threw her head back and roared, flapping her large blue wings.

“Bloody dragon-born,” Ashton called. He and Aria were struggling through the rock-pillar weave. Tight turns were never their strength. “I vote we disqualify him next time.”

“Oh, like Calum’s any better?” Luke’s voice drifted back from further up the course. Unlike Ashton and Calum, who both sat upright, Luke was stretched out lengthwise along Langsam’s back, attempting to be more aerodynamic. It seemed to be working, as they were closer to the finish than either Ashton or Calum.

“Excuse you, we play fair!” Calum yelled, and leaned down close to Cadenza. “Come on, baby girl, we can do better, yeah?”

Cadenza huffed out a puff of smoke, as if to say, _yeah, we can do better_. She sped up and they passed Luke, who swore and swerved to keep up.

Luke and Calum crossed the finish line at the exact same time, already bickering over who’d been faster.

“It was Luke,” Michael called from where he was standing on Marziale’s back. He never bothered to buckle himself in and always attempted the stupidest acrobatics, trusting Marziale to catch him if he fell. “Luke won.”

“Fuck you, Clifford!” Calum yelled as Luke whooped. Langsam dropped into a barrel roll, crowing her victory. Cadenza huffed out a puff of smoke.

“Are you going to head back to camp?” Ashton called as he crossed the finish. Aria was already sulking at coming in last, so Ashton reached forward and rubbed at the scales at the junction of her neck and shoulder. “Aria wanted to do some exploring.”

“I was going to scrub off Marziale’s claws,” Michael said, settling onto her back. Her scales rippled, ears flicking back in annoyance. “S’been awhile.”

“I’ll go with you, Ash,” Luke said. “Providing it’s okay with Langsam.”

“I’m on dinner duty,” Calum said. “If anyone sees rabbits, grab them, or else it’s just soup.” He glanced at Michael. “Race you?”

“Already gone!” Michael yelled, he and Marziale darting off. Calum sighed as Cadenza took off after their friends.

“You’re both too fucking slow,” Michael said gleefully when they landed at the campsite. Marziale was already rolling around on her back in the grass, having been freed of her saddle; after Calum stripped Cadenza’s equipment off, she bounded over to join her nestmate.

“You’ve got a telepathic disadvantage,” Calum grumbled, dumping the saddle on top of the rest of his gear.

“So’ve you,” Michael pointed out.

 _You do,_ Cadenza added, in grumbles and grows. Michael grinned, clearly hearing her as well as Calum did. Calum rolled his eyes.

“I don’t use it since it’s cheating,” Calum said primly. He knelt and dug through his pack, looking for a dinner kit--a ball of noodles and spices that they could boil for soup.

“It’s not cheating in battle,” Ashton said, finally landing. Aria’s grey scales shimmered in the way that meant the pair had been cloud-darting, absorbing water.

“We’re not in battle,” Calum called. “Where’re Luke and Langsam?”

“Luke saw something at the edge of the forest,” Ashton said. He unbuckled himself from his saddle and started disentangling Aria from her straps. As the eldest dragon on patrol, Aria was the largest, and as such, Ashton had to run around her body to reach all the buckles.

 _It might just be deer_ , Aria said, excited at the concept of fresh deer for dinner. _Langsam said she’d bring back food if it was._

“Oh, Luke won’t be happy about that,” Michael said, coming over to rest his head on Calum’s shoulder. “He hates scrubbing blood off of Langsam’s claws.”

 _But deer is so delicious,_ Marziale chipped in. _Can we go hunting, please please please?_

“Once the Ls get back and confirm it’s actually deer,” Calum told them, and attempted to disentangle from Michael. He failed to extricate all his limbs, but Michael helped him trek to the river and come back with two pots of water--one to boil to drink, and one to make supper with.

“Is one of of you going to help us with a fire?” Michael asked, hands on his hips. He gave a pointed look at the stone circle Luke had set up earlier, the neatly stacked pyre inside unlit. Marziale huffed and spat a jet of fire at the wood, igniting it immediately before flopping back over into a nap pile with Cadenza. “Thank you, your majesty, I’ll be sure to attribute our victory to your lazy arse.” Marziale opened one sleepy blue eye and petulantly spat another jet of fire at Michael, who dodged it, laughing. “Go back to sleep, you lazybones.”

Their patrol was small but tight-knit; they’d been the only four of their class to pass their exams so far, and seeing as there was always a shortage of qualified riders, had been sent out on some of the easier missions to relieve slack from more experienced patrols.

Michael’s family had always lived among the dragons, and as such Michael had always known Marziale, having been present at her hatching, only a toddler himself. He knew everything humans knew about their reptilian companions, and served as the patrol’s medic, for both dragons and humans. It was only slightly ironic that he ended up treating himself the most out of all of them, with Marziale watching over his shoulder worriedly. Unlike the others, dragonspeak came naturally to him, having learned it in parallel with English. He was known to lapse into growls and snarls when overtired. Marziale was large and her scales were shades of blue, her underscales the color of the sky from below and her overscales the color of the sea from above. Michael often wistfully talked about coloring his hair to match her scales.

Calum had been next to meet and fall in love with Cadenza. He and his class had been visiting the rookery to learn about the dragons and the dragon riders, and Calum had gotten lost. He’d stumbled into the pens where Michael and Marziale had been playing with that year’s hatchlings, and Cadenza had sensed him, tackling him to the ground. An hour later, Michael, Marziale, Calum, and Cadenza were an inseparable group, and Calum never really returned home. Calum served as the patrol’s navigator and messenger, Cadenza being the smallest and fastest of their quartet. She was mottled in shades of brown, from caramel to coffee, delicate from tip to toe. When she wanted to, she blended elegantly with her surroundings.

Luke had been next, meeting Langsam at a public matching. As with Calum and Cadenza, Langsam had knocked Luke to the ground and put her head on his chest, holding him there until he agreed to be her rider. As a rider, he specialized in combat and hunting, ensuring everyone had the weapons and food they needed. Langsam’s scales were green, her underbelly a murky greenish-brown color but her overscales a shimmering emerald green. She was the most eye-catching to humans, but like the others, she could camouflage as easily as she spat liquid fire.

Ashton was last, a transfer from another rookery. He was tired of being a substitute, and Aria had demanded a permanent patrol. Four was the smallest acceptable number for a patrol, and as such, their group had been complete. As the eldest, Ashton and Aria were the defacto leaders, and Ashton was the one who generally dealt with the higher-ups, receiving orders and delivering reports and the like. Aria was shimmering silver and grey, challenging Luke for the title of most eye-catching.

This particular mission was just a regular patrol to make sure no one was causing too much trouble in any of the towns or villages in a hundred mile radius of their rookery. They were also stopping by Luke’s old town to help tear down an old barn and rebuild another one--flight and strength were on the dragon’s side, which made construction a hell of a lot easier.

Luke and Langsam touched down half an hour after the tea was made, when the soup was bubbling away. “There’s a herd of deer about ten minute’s flight into the forest,” he said breathlessly. “They’re not so big that Aria couldn’t take them down in a hot second, but one of the bucks got Langsam in the side.”

Michael dropped the ball he’d been playing with and grabbed his medical kit to inspect Langsam’s wound.

 _It’s just a scratch,_ Langsam said. _Barely even noticeable_.

“It scored your scales,” Michael told him sharply. “It could get infected.”

_It won’t._

“I’m still cleaning it,” Michael said. “Don’t make me tell Luke about the--”

“Tell me about what?” Luke said at the same time that Langsam dropped his head and agreed.

“Oh, nothing,” Michael said breezily. “Cal, do we have any boiled water that isn’t currently soup or tea?”

“No, but I can have you some in a few minutes.” Calum pushed to his feet and fetched an empty pot, watching as everyone swung into movement.

“I got a couple of rabbits while Langsam hunted,” Luke added, unhooking the pair of carcasses from Langsam’s saddle. “I haven’t gutted them yet, though.”

“I’ll do it,” Ashton said, and took the rabbits from Luke. “We’re putting them in the soup, right?”

“Unless you want to deal with roasting them, yeah. So Ash’ll gut and skin the rabbits, I’ll get water to boil, Michael’ll tend to Lang and you’ll start cleaning Lang’s gear, yeah?” Calum confirmed, looking at Luke. “Are the dragons going to go hunting?”

 _I’m getting a nice yearling doe,_ Cadenza said. _I don’t know about the others._

 _If Cadenza gets doe and I don’t, I’ll be very put out,_ Marziale said, perking up immediately. _Can I go, Michael, can I?_

“I’m not stopping you,” Michael said, as Calum set off to retrieve more water to boil. “Just don’t get gouged like Langsam.

When Calum came back, there was only one dragon in the clearing, and Michael was giving her a stern talking to.

Luke was hiding a grin as he scoured dirt off of Langsam’s saddle, checking for rips in the leather.

“You don’t take on a buck, especially when you’ve got a rider,” Michael said as he checked Langsam for other injuries. “Humans are soft and fleshy, this might have been a small wound for you, but it’d’ve killed Luke, and we don’t want Luke dead, do we?”

 _No_ , Langsam whined. Calum shared an exasperated look with Michael and hid a giggle from Luke as he filled up their tea kettle and set it to boil.

Ashton returned with the skinned and gutted rabbits before long, and dropped them in the boiling soup. “Should be half an hour or so til they’re cooked,” he said. “I’m going to go scrub up at the river. Anyone coming with?”

“I’m dealing with this idiot,” Michael said. Langsam was sulking and Luke was still clearly hiding a laugh at his dragon’s petulance and Michael’s reaction. “You go.”

Calum stirred the dinner pot while Michael cleaned Langsam’s wound and sent her off to nap, belly full and injury tended to.

Dinner was delicious, with the addition of Luke’s rabbits. They chatted and argued over who’d really won the race earlier, seeing as Michael had cheated. They all washed up in the river and took advantage of the late summer evening sunlight to repair ripped gear and clothing. The dragons returned half an hour before the light truly disappeared and splashed around in the river to clean off the blood from their hunt.

The weather was clear, so while the dragons bounded around in the river, they packed up as much of their gear as they could and unrolled their blankets and bedrolls in a circle around the fire.

“We’re in safe territory,” Ashton said, glancing at Calum’s map. “We should be fine leaving the fire going all night. Who’s on first watch?”

Calum took the first shift of the night, poking at the fire and polishing Cadenza’s scales in turn. She especially loved having the spots where the saddle usually chafed soothed, so he paid extra attention to those areas, rubbing wide circles until she was rumbling contentedly, smoke puffing out of his nostrils along with the occasional drip of fire. He loved sitting like this, paying attention to his dragon and appreciating the starlight this far from civilization.

Michael relieved him three hour in, sending Calum off to his bedroll with a sleepy smile and a promise to keep the fire going. He’d wake Ashton in another three hours, and Luke got a full night’s sleep, lucky fucker.

Calum woke to the smell of slightly burnt black coffee, porridge and reheated rabbit soup not long after sunrise. Luke and Ashton were bickering over who got the last of the soup, while their dragons snored on behind them. Michael was a motionless lump in his bedroll, so Calum left him to sleep, knowing how testy he got when he didn’t get all the sleep he could.

“Morning,” he said, yawning.

“Morning,” Luke and Ashton said in unison, before returning to their argument. Calum ladled himself porridge and poured himself a cup of coffee, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

“What’re we doing today?” Calum asked after he’d finished eating. “Stonewall today?”

“Barn raising and hauling cows out of ditches, I think,” Ashton said. He’d won the fight for the soup and was happily slurping it out of a mug while Luke contented himself with porridge. “Stonewall’s two hours’ flight away--what, fifty miles?”

“Closer to forty, but yeah.” Calum hummed. “So we should get there by noon at the latest, we can spend the afternoon helping out, and Luke’s family always lets us stay so we can finish up tomorrow.”

“My oldest brother got married since we’ve been there last,” Luke chipped in. “So we’ve got two houses we could stay at.”

“Great!” Ashton enthused. “How many nieces and nephews have you got, now?”

“Only three,” Luke said, leaning against Calum’s shoulder. “Twin girls and a boy. My mum keeps wondering when I’ll get married and give her grandbabies. Don’t know how to tell her Langsam is the closest she’s getting to a grandbaby from me.”

“Hazards of being a dragonrider,” Calum joked. He sipped at his coffee, making a face at the bitterness. Ashton always made the coffee strong enough to strip paint, which did wonders for keeping them warm and awake in the thin air above the clouds but probably dealt a lot of damage to their stomachs.

“Someone wake the dragons,” Ashton said eventually, stretching. He scraped the last of the porridge into a bowl and poured the dregs of the coffeepot into a mug. “Someone do the dishes, and someone try to make Michael eat before we have to pack up.”

Luke went to shake Michael awake--he was the least likely to get bitten, honestly--and Calum went to stroke Cadenza awake. He was too busy coaxing Aria awake to see what caused Luke to shriek and Ashton to giggle. Cadenza nosed at Marziale, and Aria flumped onto Langsam, startling the older dragon into wakefulness.

It took five minutes for Michael to scarf down his breakfast--he scalded his tongue on the coffee-- and another ten for them to pack up all their gear into their packs. Saddles took another fifteen, and then they were taking to the sky, wound up in goggles and scarves and layers to keep warm up in the air.

Luke took point today, as they were heading for his home. Ashton flew behind and above him, and Calum flew to the left and below. Michael darted around their formation, letting Marziale expel excess early morning energy until she settled in the center of their formation, where they were supposed to be.

Michael whistled at her, and swung into a standing position, graceful as he always was when it came to dragons. He carefully walked down the length of Marziale’s tail and stepped off the side, landing in a crouch on Cadenza’s back, fifteen feet below.

“Hi, Calum,” he said, sitting and wrapping his arms around Calum’s waist. “I missed you.”

“I just talked to you an hour ago,” Calum replied, leaning back into Michael’s embrace. “You can’t possibly miss me already.”

“Well, I missed you, and Marziale wouldn’t stop talking at me, so I decided to come visit you,” Michael said. “Also, you’re much softer to sleep on than Marziale, and Ashton would just yell at me, and Luke never rides smoothly enough to sleep on.”

Beneath them, Cadenza rippled with laughter. Marziale darted around them, chattering. Calum let the dragonspeak ripple around him, not listening to the words but rather the warm chimes and rocky rumbles of the dragons.

Michael fell asleep curled up behind him, grip slackening around Calum’s waist. Calum reached for a spare tie on Cadenza’s saddle and tied it to Michael’s belt, just in case. Luke and Ashton were shouting at each other over the wind, their dragons bickering just as loudly.

 _Don’t drop our boy_ , Cadenza said as they took a wide bank turn. _Marziale would never let me hear the end of it_.

“Ashton would never let me hear the end of it,” Calum countered. Cadenza laughted, and they flew for another half hour until Luke signaled that he’d sighted Stonewall.

Calum heard the town blowing the dragon-sighting horn, and watched as Ashton signaled for them to circle a safe distance away. Ashton flew ahead alone, fishing their bright red and blue flag out of his bag. It probably would have made sense to send Luke, as he was the town’s pride and joy, being the youngest dragon rider to make patrol, but Ashton was the leader.

There weren’t many rogue dragons, but this close to the border occasionally there were nasty raiding parties on dragonback. Calum couldn’t blame Stonewall for being cautious. As they circled, Calum shook Michael awake and waited for Cadenza to line up with Marziale so Michael could cross back to his own dragon.

The three of them circled in formation until Ashton returned, a wreath of flowers on his head. Aria had a matching one and was preening loudly.

“They’re waiting for us,” Ashton said cheerfully as he and Aria darted through the center of their ring. “Come on, they can’t wait to see you, Luke.”

“I bet. Was my mum there?”

“Where do you think we got the flower crowns from?” Ashton asked, laughing. Aria echoed the sound. “Your nieces and nephews are especially excited to see you.”

“Oh, gods,” Luke said, and patted Langsam gently. “Where do they want us?”

“They were hoping Cadenza and Marziale could help out with the barn-raising on the north-western side of town, and Aria and I were going to help the shepherds retrieve some cows, since Aria’s the least likely to eat their livestock.”

 _It was one time!_ Langsam protested as the other dragons laughed at her. _I was young!_

“This is why we don’t come visit very often,” Luke said dryly. “And us? Where do they want us?”

“Well, your mother wants you,” Ashton said, watching as Michael yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Buckle in, Clifford.”

“Yeah, yeah, daddy,” Michael said dryly, and wound his saddle straps around his thighs.

“Your mother wants you, Luke, and then I think Langsam is needed to help deconstruct a house that burned down, but that can wait for you to see your family.”

They split up over the town, Calum following Michael to the site where the barn was being built. There were half a dozen men there, both wary and grateful for the dragon’s presence. Calum dismounted and talked to them, going over what they had planned and what they wanted help with while Michael pulled off all but the most necessary gear so the dragons weren’t carrying excess weight that they didn’t have to be hauling around.

Cadenza and Marziale helped haul the skeleton structure of the barn upright and let the townsmen secure the beams in place. Calum watched Cadenza’s progress with a careful eye, making sure she didn’t get overtired. Michael was doing the same with Marziale, especially when they started hauling up the flat side walls the townsmen had built on the ground.

About two hours in, Ashton came by to check in on them. He was on foot, Aria clearly off helping somewhere else. Whenever they were in a safe area, Ashton preferred to run, claiming it kept him in shape and let him exercise his legs like Aria exercised her wings. Calum thought it was mostly bullshit but Ashton seemed to genuinely enjoy it, and Aria never complained.

“Luke’s mum’s set up pallets on the floor for us,” he told Calum, stretching after his run. “And there’s an empty field they just harvested not far away. The farmer asked if we could scorch it a bit, give the earth some ashes and fertilizer, apparently.”

Calum nodded. “Anything else we can do while we’re here?”

“Other than the barn? Langsam and Luke are helping pull stubborn tree stumps on the south side of town when they’re not rescuing sheep, and I helped clear a fallen tree off a road earlier. Aria’s helping with the house, and you’re out here. I think we’re doing alright, they’ll let us know if there’s anything else we can help with. You’ll tell Michael what’s going on?”

“Yeah, ‘course.”

Calum whistled and caught Michael’s attention; he relayed Ashton’s message while Ashton sprinted back towards the town, kicking up small puffs of dust as he went.

As they broke for a mid-afternoon meal and rest, the town’s children appeared, bringing their fathers (and the dragonriders) food. Calum greeted them while Michael finished up one last task.

The little kids loved seeing the dragons and their jewel-bright scales, so Calum made sure Cadenza was polished up bright and beautiful once they’d done their bit to help build the barn. She loved the attention and preened, fluffing out her ruffs and licking at her claws. The littlest ones were the first to come forward, too curious for their own good.

Cadenza trilled happily; Marziale glanced over from where she was helping the townspeople lower roof-beams into place. Their wingspans were too wide for both of them to work on the heavy-roofbeams, so Michael and Marziale were flying while Calum and Cadenza entertained the town’s children.

Marziale whined, clearly wanting to play with the children as well. Cadenza said something too fast for Calum to catch, but it clearly caused Michael to laugh and Marziale to sulk.

Cadenza allowed the little ones to clamber up over her back and rub at her scales in awe. Calum sat crosslegged between her forelegs and ate the bread and meat one of the children had given him shyly, answering questions for the inquisitive children.

“Her name’s Cadenza,” he told a little girl with braids in her hair. “She’s fully grown, won’t get bigger.”

“Her favorite food is fish,” he said to the little girls’ brother. “And she likes scratching her back on trees. You know, like a cat.”

“Marziale’s her sister,” he added, when the adults sat down for lunch, Marziale and Michael not far behind. “They’ve got the same Dad, but not the same Mum, they’re about a year apart in age.“

Marziale curled up in a pile with Cadenza, the two of them shifting so they could nap together in the sunlight. The children kept darting forward to run little hands over their scales and clamber up on top; it bothered neither dragon, both too used to inquisitive children everywhere they went.

“I’ve got some scales Marzi shed,” Michael said, reaching for one of their packs. “If any of the littles want some, they can take them, I’ve been hauling them around for stuff like this.”

“Yeah, me too,” Calum said. “I’ve got some of Langsam and Aria’s too, for variety.”

Michael ended up with a veritable rainbow of scales on his lap--greens, greys, browns, and blues from their dragons, and reds, oranges, and yellows from their fellow patrols back at their rookery. The children--and some of the adults--oohed and awed over the oval scales, and in the end Michael’s pack was two dozen scales lighter.

 _The small one with the twisted hair_ , Cadenza said to Calum as they straightened up to get back to work. _She’ll be a rider one day. Make sure she knows. She’s got the heart for it._

The townsmen looked surprised when Calum relayed the information.

“She can speak?” one of them asked.

“Dragonspeak,” Michael said, already swinging up onto Marziale’s back. “It takes awhile to learn, but they help you along. They understand human language just fine, it’s just the talking that’s hard.”

They finished the barn in another hour and took off to see if anyone else needed assistance.

As it turned out, not much help was needed, so Michael and Calum left their dragons in the field with strict instructions not to eat any livestock--fish in the river were fine, deer in the forest were fine, but anything that looked like it could belong to someone was pointedly off limits--and wandered into town to find Luke’s family.

They spent the evening drinking and laughing and hearing embarrassing stories about Luke’s childhood; Ashton and Calum went to bed early and piled in a heap of dragonriders. Not long later, Michael joined them, but Luke stayed up late into the night, talking with his parents and brothers.

The morning dawned bright and faintly cloudy; thick clouds were rolling in and it looked like rain was sweeping in from the north. They dressed warmly and bid farewell to Luke’s family, and mounted up so they could try to outfly the rain.

“Going home?” Michael asked Ashton, already stretching out lengthwise like he was going to take a nap on Marziale’s back. Calum honestly wouldn’t put it past him to sleep the whole way home, if Marziale let him. Luke was already giggling at Ashton’s indignant expression and Marziale’s put-upon one.

“Going home,” Ashton confirmed. Luke whooped and turned in his saddle to grin at Calum.

Calum grinned and stretched his arms out as his patrol took to the sky, Cadenza practically singing beneath him as they lifted off.

Yeah, this was heaven, he was pretty sure.

**Author's Note:**

> Since 5sos are not musical in this, all the dragons have musical names because I am a nerd who not only loves dragons but also classical music. Two are tempos, two are movements within a piece, but, yeah, they’re musical names. (Aria: expressive & airy, Langsam: slow, relaxed, Marziale: martial, solemn & fierce, Cadenza: solo, technique.)
> 
> Also, come say hi to me on tumblr! :) I'm dormilonaluna, and I do blog quite a bit of 5sos, even if it's mixed in with Marvel and HTTYD and a bunch of other stuff.


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